King of the Loony Bin
by ItsLukasBondevik
Summary: Lance and Zack reach an understanding. In relation to The Perfect Pieces in the Purple Pond.


**AN**: This has been wheeling around in my mind for days. I hope you enjoy it. Lance and Zack are my favorite characters in the entire show. I hope I did them justice.

Lance liked to think that he was a very good person. That what he did for a living helped people, in more ways than just putting the bad guys behind bars. He felt better when he helped Booth and Brennan make an arrest, he felt that he was showing the world that hey, I was a foster kid, I was hurt and abused, thrown aside and forgotten for the first few years of my life, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to matter, because now I'm making the world a better place.

He had a strong heart and a strong sense of right and wrong. Even with those traumatizing beginnings, Sweets was able to make something of his life. He didn't know of many people that had PhDs at his age, that had his credentials and brainpower. He knew what he wanted to do with his life, and he was able to get there by his own willpower.

Despite all he'd seen, all he'd endured and gone through, he still felt a pang of sadness when he went to his sessions with Zachery Addy. Zack was a friend of his friends, something they all cared about and missed desperately. Admittedly, if pressed to answer, Lance would consider him to be a friend of his as well, and he did care about Zack. It was why he felt so sad when he knew that the odds were against Zack getting out of the asylum any time in the near future. He knew the longer he was in there, the more his friends suffered without him.

But he couldn't understand Zack. He was logical, sure. An entity of pure rational thought that he'd never experienced before. He wasn't a sociopath, because he actually felt things, as little as those feelings were, they still showed. He didn't have that serial killer mentality, and strictly speaking, Zack, really, was not insane, at least by the textbook definition.

Still though. Sweets gripped the wired gate in front of the asylum, pressing his forehead against the grate, frustrated. He prevented Zack from going to jail, because he truly believed that Zack could be fixed somehow, that Lance could return the man to his friends, where he belonged. But he couldn't find anything in Zack that would link him to the ability to kill someone. The puzzle just didn't make that picture for him. There was no killer instinct in Zack, at least not one that Lance could find.

He checked his watch. Booth was taking his sweet time getting here, and it would be on Lance's head if someone found out that Zack escaped from the asylum. There would be a lot of trouble for everyone involved, and that was the last thing that Lance wanted for them. He reached for his cell phone, ready to call Booth, but the familiar black SUV pulled up in front of him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Seeley Booth climbed out and opened the back door, pulling Zack out of the back, murmuring, "Okay. Yeah, come on, let's go. Come on, easy."

Lance bristled, his relief giving way to annoyance. "What took so long?"

Booth waved off the man's irritation. "Relax, Sweets, okay? He's all yours."

Confused, Sweets said, "Wait," he paused, glancing between the two of them before looking back at Booth. "I thought we'd do this together."

"Look, just walk him back through the front door okay. Don't look guilty, and if anyone asks, you took him for electroshock. Alright?" Sweets sighed to himself, as Booth turned to look at Zack. Sweets saw an almost fatherly look for a moment, something that told him that Booth cared so much more for Zack than he showed on the surface. "Don't. Escape. Again. You got it Zack?" Zack glanced to the ground and nodded. "You figure out who a killer is, you call me or Doctor Brennan." He glanced to Sweets and added as an afterthought, "Not Sweets. Alright?"

Trying again, Sweets asserted, "Wait." Booth cocked an eyebrow. "What if he... I don't know, what if he overpowers me or..."

"Zack...?" Booth said incredulously, glancing at him for a moment.

"I'm much stronger than I look," Zack responded defensively.

Grasping at straws, hoping to have the might of the FBI on his side to alleviate any trouble that might arise, Lance said, almost begging, "He's done it before. He killed a man!"

Booth looked almost amused, as he turned to Zack and chided, "Okay, Zack, promise you're not going to kill Sweets."

Without pausing, he said, "I promise."

"There you go!"

Sweets frowned and grumbled, "Yeah, yeah..." Booth left them standing in front of the asylum, and Lance felt a twinge of irritation for a moment, thinking of what would happen if they got caught. Their excuse was shoddy at best, but he was sure he could pull it off if he tried. He turned to Zack and told him, "If we bump into anybody, let me do the talking." He took off towards the entrance, and Zack followed.

"I haven't actually literally done it before, you know," Zack told him conversationally.

With an amused tone, Lance asked, "Had sex?"

"Ended someone's life," he corrected, and then added with a frown, "Why doesn't anyone ever believe I've had sex?"

Sweets stopped short, glancing back at his patient. His heart seemed to stop short, skip a beat, and then restarted. "You confessed to plunging a knife into a man's chest." His voice was shaky, as if he didn't want to believe what he was being told.

"No, I said I killed him. Which I did - I told the Master where to find the man," he corrected yet again, but Sweets was beginning to feel a hole grow in the pit of his stomach. He was feeling weary of the entire situation. He didn't want to continue this line of questioning, but he couldn't help himself.

He licked his lips and questioned, "But you didn't... plunge a knife into the man's chest?"

"It wasn't me."

"Zack!" he exclaimed, "why did you confess?" His head was reeling in confusion.

"I would've done it," Zack asserted, looking completely serious. "If the Master had asked, I would have done it."

Lance shook his head, feeling lightheaded. "No, no, you don't know that. People have no idea if they're capable of ending a life until they're put in that situation!" His heart was pounding. This was so wrong, this was so, so wrong. But somehow, it seemed to prove him correct. "In all of our sessions, I've had question marks because you, at heart, are not a killer." He pulled out his cell phone, saying, half to himself, half to Zack, "I gotta, I gotta tell Doctor Brennan," he began to dial, "and Booth."

"You can't tell them, because I'm your patient, and you're not allowed," Zack said quickly, and his effort worked; Lance stopped dialing on the phone. He added, feeling as though he needed to clarify himself, "Ethically."

Lance stared at him in disbelief. "Zack, don't you want your friends to know that you didn't kill anyone?"

He shook his head sadly. " I'm still an accessory to murder. If you tell them, they'll take me out of here and put me in prison." His voice grew softer. "Hodgins assures me I would not do well in prison."

For a moment, Lance was stunned silent. But his brain was working overtime, and he asked, "Okay, what about the person that actually did commit the murder? He's still out there!"

"No," Zack told him quietly. "The Master killed him, so he could recruit me. There could only ever be two." He said this with such certainty that it almost sent shivers down Lance's spine.

He pleaded, "You have to let me tell the truth."

"You can't tell anyone without my permission," Zack said firmly, and then glanced back to the asylum behind them. "We should go in. I don't want to get you into trouble." He began to walk away, and Sweets stared after him, feeling lost. He wanted to help Zack, he wanted him to be seen for who he really was. Zack was not a murder. He may be an accessory to one, but his hands, metaphorically, were completely clean.

What kept him here? Guilt for the death of the man? Or was it really because he was terrified of going to jail? Or was it both? He followed his ward back into the building, but no one questioned them. His brain was working overtime, trying to understand what was going on in Zack's head. It was spare his friends pain to know that he didn't murder anyone, but it would send him into the confines of prison if he did. Was he still so rational that he'd sacrifice his friends' peace of mind to avoid his own incarceration?

Sweets shook his head. An asylum was still a prison for Zack. He was still locked up and unable to do what he loved to do. Either way, he was confined inside walls and gates and fences, having to see his friends on the other side of a table, in a dark room. It was a asylum workers put him back into his room, and Sweets said his goodbyes to the man. "I'll see you later, Zack," he said with a wave. Zack waved back, wordlessly, and the door was closed on him.

Lance Sweets sat on the hood of his car in the parking lot, looking up at the stars. It was Zack's punishment. He sat up straighter. It was a punishment. His own self inflicted punishment. He could argue against, and probably win, going to jail for his crime. But this was self inflicted pain for himself, self inflicted because he betrayed his best friends, his family, the people that meant the most to him in his life. He forced himself to stay locked up, behind his proverbial bars.

Regardless of the reasoning, regardless of anything for that matter, he knew that Zack was a good person, at the heart of things. No matter what. Lance got off the hood and into his car, putting the keys in the ignition.

He would help Zack get free. He would help him no matter what.


End file.
